Fire Brand
by silent0utl0ud
Summary: A boy is entering into a wizarding school, he begins to have strange dreams he cant understand. He tries to make more sense of them.
1. Make youself at home

Brand found himself awake, his head on top of the letter his friend Axelle had sent him. His brown eyes gazed at the clock on the wall above his bed, he saw that he had been sleeping for over five hours, it was just starting to get dark for the night. His brown hair was in a mess; he couldn't even pass his fingers through it without getting them stuck in a knot. He looked back to his letter:

_Guess what Brandy! I used a spell! I was sitting on the couch in the living room listening to MMC: Magic music channel…you wouldn't know it, you never listen. Anyway, so I was sitting there and I lifted my arms and my crazy grandpa was floating in the air and he hit the ceiling! I couldn't stop laughing. What ever, I have to go eat now. _

_It's me,_

_Ax!_

Brand took a piece of parchment from his drawer and wrote:

_That's great Ax. I hope your grandpa's head get's better. I can't wait till we can actually go to school._

_Have a good one,_

_Brand_

Axelle had been known to cast accidental magic all the time, unlike Brand who no one really believed could be a wizard, he'd never used a spell, purposeful or accidentally.

"ow!" the owl that had brought the letter from Axelle bit his finger impatiently; it had apparently been waiting there on the window all the time he had been asleep. "Oh, I'm so sorry Meep-meep" He said, and rolled up the note, attached it to the owl's leg and it flew off making angry noises.

Brand walked downstairs to see if he could eat dinner before he went to sleep. "Dad, I need food!" Brand called, he waited for a bit then when he didn't get an answer he started looking through the rooms in the house. His dad was a wizard and he lived alone with him since after his mother had died. After Brand made sure his father wasn't in the house he went to the phone, there wasn't a lot of magic in the house because his father had wanted to keep the memory of brand's muggle mother alive. Brand called the number his dad had given him for emergencies, "Five… Four… Three… Two… One

Before Brand could hit the last number there was a loud noise upstairs, like a firing of a gun, so he hung up the phone and ran upstairs. He grabbed the handle to his room door and opened it; inside, an old man was sitting in a wooden chair that he didn't remember ever being there.

"Hello," the man said and outstretched his hand. "I am Aurelius Kin Zeheb, you can call me Zeb." Brand took the hand and shook it. The man was old, as old a man as Brand had ever seen, he had wrinkles all over his face and his hands felt like they would break off to his touch. He let go from the hand hoping he hadn't hurt it.

"I'm—

"Brand Garrick" He interrupted.

"Sorry…" Brand paused, "do I know you?"

"Yes, now you do" he said, and smiled making Brand feel very uncomfortable. "I'm here to take you to my house! I believe you know my granddaughter Axelle?"

"You're Ax's Grandfather? I would never have guessed!" Brand said, he really couldn't see anything alike between them.

"Well, that's no fault of mine," he said grumpily. "She was adopted." He looked at Brand with his brows half covering his eye, again Brand felt uncomfortable. "Hold my arm tight"

"err… why?" Even without an answer however Brand took the old man's arm trying not to hurt him. Then, he was sucked through a tube of wind where he couldn't breathe, and couldn't help but hold tighter to Zeb's old arm.

He took a huge breath and suddenly found himself in a huge room with wooden tiles for walls floor and ceiling. There were 3 doors per wall…but none of them seemed to be an entrance, his first thought was that Ax's house was huge and they must be very rich.

"Welcome to my home," Zeb said, still sitting in his chair, grumpily rubbing his arm where Brand had been holding. "Don't make yourself too at home, not meaning to be rude, no one's welcome here."

Brand thought the old man was being rather rude for someone not trying to be rude. But his thoughts were interrupted by a scream high pitched and horrible as if someone was in terrible pain.

"BRANDY!"

Axelle was running towards him at the speed of light. Brand was starting to think it would be a good idea to start running in the opposite direction, but it was too late he was slammed to the floor and he felt like his back had broken in five different places. Once Brand managed to get to his feet he looked at Ax, she was smiling really wide and her eyes were twinkling. "Guessss what Brandy!"

"erm.." Brand started to say then he turned to Zeb. "Why did you bring me here?"

Zeb looked like he was going to give bad news and Brand inside became heavy. "Your father... he…" Zeb began—

"He got held up at work! So we get to keep you here!" Ax yelled excitedly. Zeb walked away grumbling something about, 'disgrace to the family' and 'that child is a pain...'

Brand hoped he only got held up at work… it happened a lot before, after all Brand's father was the most powerful person at the ministry, Tristram Garrick, Minister of magic.

"Well thank you for inviting me to stay," Brand said, he was feeling a bit down, his dad promised him he'd be there when his school letter arrived. Ever since His mother, Orenda Garrick, died his father was always busy, or maybe that's just when Brand realized that he was always busy.

There were four schools wizards and witches from California were sent to: Galiawaver, Urielflere, Indiralite, and Mandartree. Which school you entered was the decision of your parents or guardians. So Brand didn't even know if his dad had already chosen behind his back. The only way he would receive the letters was if his dad was too busy to get his son into school, which was likely.

"…and so much fun, we're gunna' play all kinds of games" Axelle had apparently been talking while Brand was thinking, but Brand couldn't focus on anything he was still very tired even after the five hours of sleeping he had done earlier. "we'll do all this fun stuff and then we'll eat, and then—

"Hey Ax, can you show me where I'm sleeping? I'm really tired" Brand asked.

"Sure, your room is way up top" She began walking towards a metal door in the wall with millions of buttons on the side, in Brand's opinion, it was too many buttons, there was no way the house could be that big.

"Is it an elevator…?" He asked.

"Elevator? No, this is a floor changer of course," she said, as if it were the most obvious thing. "You press the button for the floor you want to go to and go inside" She pressed the button with the label '18059', the metal door slid open and she stepped inside, she beckoned to Brand to follow. Once he stepped inside the door slammed shut. At first all he could see was darkness, but before he opened his mouth to ask her what was going on, a million or so bright stars of colors sparkled all around him. It was beautiful and it seemed to go on forever, but it suddenly faded back to black and the door slip open again making light spill into Brand's eyes. It took Brand a moment to realize how little time he had actually passed inside the floor changer. Ax turned and smiled at him, "you'll get used to it."

Axelle kept talking as they walked through a corridor with doors numbered with a strange alphabet that Brand didn't know. "What's amazing about this house is that it doesn't really exist" she said with a mysterious sideways look, a kind of scary one, as if she was sure he would ask…

"Umm… doesn't exist?" He asked hoping it would make her stop staring at him weird.

"Yea, its own world…it's not on the map. And it's alive, if it doesn't like you… It'll make sure to get rid of you." She smiled, Brand was starting to worry, was this what Zeb meant when he said that no one was really welcome in the house, was he going to be spit out into space while he was sleeping?

"Here it is! Grandpa told me it's this one." She pointed at the only green door in the black walled corridor; the other doors were blue, yellow, or red.

"Thanks Ax," he said. "I'll go right to bed."

"Bye bye Brandy, see you tomorrow in the kitchen, I'll be making eggs by the time you get up and find your way there." She ran off through the corridor skipping.

Brand turned to the green door and opened it, all he saw as he opened it was a bed, and it was all he saw before he feel asleep on it.


	2. The Magus Vireos Board

Brand awoke suddenly, there were clicking sounds coming from his left. Still lying down, he looked around; he was surrounded by a forest of very, very, very large trees. They were so large that width of the root was probably somewhere around 2 times his height. There seemed to be a lot of wild life around judging by the noise, but it was all hidden behind the massive trunks and leaves. He was admiring the trees and beauty of the rising sun casting a wild print of red-orange light and shadow for a while, before he even began to wonder how he had gotten here. Brand wouldn't really mind if was stuck in the rainforest, it was such a beautiful place he could stay and stare for days. He walked around for about half an hour before he found any sign of civilization, a small hut rested on one of the biggest roots he'd seen in the whole forest. He made his way towards it listening to all the sounds of the wild on the way. He was about to knock on the door when all his surroundings disappeared in the blink of an eye. The house was gone, the trees were gone, and the sounds of animals scurrying bush to bush were gone. Brand was standing in complete blackness, and complete silence.

Brand awoke suddenly, there were clicking sounds coming from his left. Still lying down, he looked around; he was in a room, it had a cabinet, a closet, and a fan that was spinning slowly. The room was lit although there were no windows or lights so he wasn't sure where the light was coming from. He got up out of the bed to check where the clicking noises were coming from; they seemed to be coming from the wall, so he lowered himself and put his ear to the wall. Instead of his head stopping on the wall it went through as if the wall wasn't even there. In surprise he stumbled forward, and to make everything worse not only was the no wall there was no floor in this room. In fact, it wasn't a room, it was empty space. Maybe the house had decided it didn't like him in the end and sent him into space. The similar stars from the floor changer appeared and time went by slowly as he fell. After the, now seconds, of the fall he landed hard on the floor of a tiled room, his head hurt and he could smell eggs.

"Good morning," Said a cheery high pitched voice he couldn't recognize. "I see the house gave you a hand getting here this morning, it must like you." Brand looked up into the large round eyes a short long eared creature. He yelled in surprise which seemed to have scared the creature more the creature scared Brand.

"I'm sorry," said Brand. "My name is Brand, what's your name?"

"oooh, you are too polite little master," the creature said.

"Master?"

"I serve anyone in this house, master," It said squeakily.

"Call me Brand," Brand said while looking around. He was standing in the biggest kitchen he had ever seen; in fact it was more like a bunch of little kitchens put together. Every station had its own stack of boxes of eggs, many cut loaves of bread, really long toasters with many holes, and cupboards he guessed were full of jams and jellies.

"Yes master Brand, sir," it squeaked. Brand had to stop himself from laughing.

"No, just Brand," he said. "What is this place? Ax says it's a living house that isn't part of the world or something… what kind of spell is it?"

"This house is called the Link Mansion; it holds imprints of all magic ever used in the world. The Link Mansion is part of its own magical space; the original spell was made by a wizard named Phoenix Lavali, in around 2000BC." It squeaked on.

"What did you say your name was?"

"My apologies master! I mean Brand, I'm so sorry, sorry, sorry!" It squealed, its large eyes watering. "Doodle will have to punish himself for not answering all master's question!" It screamed, which was starting to make Brand's head hurt more than it did after the fall from the ceiling. "I will have to punish myself more! Your name is Brand, I will not call you master any longer, I promise!"

"Calm down…errr… Doodle was it? Everyone makes mistakes; you don't have to punish yourself."

"Yes, Brand," Doodle said and ran off with its head pointed at the ground.

Brand made his way through the kitchen looking for Axelle. He found her about 3 kitchens down, her black hair in pigtails. "Hey," Brand said as he got near her. "How are the eggs going?"

"Good morning! They're doing fine," she replied smiling at him. He looked past her to her frying pan, inside was something he couldn't recognize as eggs, it was more like lots of black rocks. She was humming while she moved them around on the pan.

"Ermm... Ax, I think you burned them," he wasn't really yet sure they were actually eggs. She looked down at the frying pan with her dark blue eyes and said,

"Yea... maybe they are a bit over cooked." She pulled out the trash can below the counter she was working on; it was already full of little black rocks.

"Here," Brand said. "I'll do it." He switched places with her and took some eggs from one of the boxes that were piled on top of each other, some empty. "Do you like them scrambled, or sunny side up?" She seemed very confused by this question so she just said,

"I like them black," she smiled. "That's how they are when my dad makes them."

"Well, you're about to try something new," Brand said. He broke the egg over the edge of the pan, and let the egg's contents spill onto the already very hot pan. The egg was already cooked by the time it hit the metal, he was surprised the pan hadn't melted. "What are your parents like?" he asked as he turned off the flame and put her egg in a plate.

"Thanks, it looks undercooked though… it's not even black," she said. Brand decided not to tell her that it was better this way, so he remained silent and popped toast into the many-holed toaster. "My parents are nice, they're very different though," she said. "My mom is not around people much, she stays alone. My dad, he likes to—

She was interrupted by a voice right behind Brand making him jump what felt like 5 centimeters of the ground. "Surprise people," It finished.

"That's my dad," Axelle said. Brand turned around, the man, now in front of him, was tall and skinny, he had black hair, red eyes, and very pale skin. "He's not a vampire just so you know, he's just weird." Ax continued; it relieved Brand to know that. "He looks exactly like grandpa did at his age." Brand turned around to see if he could see the resemblance, but her dad was no longer there. Brand was waiting for her dad to pop up out of nowhere and scare him, but it didn't come, instead the toaster went off making him jump another 5 or so centimeters.

Once Brand had finished making his breakfast he and Axelle made their way to a door that was labeled 'Dining'. Inside, just as Brand had expected, was the biggest dining room he had ever seen, many, many long tables in rows with benches for seats. "Why does your family need so much room?" Brand asked; he'd been burning to ask this since he saw how many floors there were inside the Link Mansion.

"This House was built by some magician for the war; it housed the warriors, priests, and sorcerers and all their families during the wars of Endorael." She said as she sat down on a bench near Zeb. "I think, is that right, gramps?"

He turned around and opened his mouth slowly as if thinking of what to say, and said, "Not at all, not at all." He turned back to his bowl of oatmeal, although, to Brand it looked more like seaweed.

"Oh," she said. "I thought it was.…" Brand examined the strange oat meal in the silence that followed, until Axelle interrupted it.

"Brandy, do you want to play a board game or something?" She said, "I know muggles like that."

"I'm not a muggle, just a squib or something." He said; he was tired of people talking to him as if he had different needs and ideas. He wanted to say more but instead he stared at the strange oatmeal longer.

"That's what I said," she waved her hands in dismissal. "You still like board games right?"

"Yea" he said but he was distracted, Zeb was about to take a spoonful of his seaweed-ish oatmeal, Brand was sure something strange would happen once he ate it. To Brand's disappointment, before Zeb took the mouthful Axelle grabbed his arm and pulled him away.

"Come on!"

Brand and Axelle made their way through three doors, to the floor changer, and to the 1790th floor. Axelle had been right; he was getting used to time slowing down inside the floor changer. The fourth room down the corridor on the left was green, like his had been. "Why are all the doors red, blue, or green?" He asked looking around the corridor.

"Because, we've marked all the doors in colors that tell us what kind of room it is," Axelle answered, she seemed to be enjoying knowing more about something than Brand. "The red are rooms we can't open, the blue are rooms we've opened but are too dangerous to go in, and the green ones are rooms that are safe."

Axelle opened the green door and opened it, inside it, was a complete mess; there were things over the floor. "With such a big mansion, don't you have somewhere else to store your things?" Brand asked as he took a careful step over a large pile of magazines.

"No, there are only 16 of the rooms that are safe in the whole mansion, that includes the kitchen, the dining hall, and the four bathrooms." She said, kicking a pair of pants from her path towards a little white cabinet. "So that leaves 10 rooms, one for Zeb, one for my mom and dad, two for the hundred house elves, and one for me." She kneeled down by the cabinet and opened a drawer, from it she pulled out a rectangular box. "That leaves 5 guest rooms; they won't let me have one of those or a little area of the dining hall either." She blew dust off the wooden box, revealing a beautiful design of a bird with green feathers.

"Oh, I see… what's a house elf?" Brand asked.

"It's little creatures who do work for us." She answered, and opened the box in half and revealed a square board with eight shiny gems.

"Oh, like Doodle. What is that?" Brand stared at the board it was very beautiful piece of work. The gems were set in two rows of four, they encryptions on the top and bottom of each, and an indent at the bottom.

"This board is called the Magus Vireos Board," she smiled at it. "It counts up magical capacity; they used it long ago before wands were invented. Did you know that before they invented wands people just used magical objects to channel their magic?"

"No, I didn't," He sat down on a stack of large books. "I thought you said we were going to play a board game?"

"Well, it's a board…" she looked confused. "What the problem with it?"

"Nothing, what do I do?" He had no idea how this board would work.

"Put your index finger here," she said. "The gems will light up depending on how strong your magic is. The first row counts up your overall magic and the second tells you how strong a channeler you need." She put her pointer finger to the indent on the bottom and the second gems of both rows lit up, the top light purple and the bottom dark purple. "Since both the second ones lit up, it's saying that I have an average magic and that I need an average magic channeler, like inside a wand." She looked at him and said, "Most people don't get past the two second ones." She lifted her finger and the stones' light flickered and died. He placed his finger on the board at first nothing happened, and Brand was starting to think maybe he didn't have any magic at all. Axelle seemed to have thought the same thing for she opened her mouth, but before she could say a word the two last lights came on.

"What?" Brand said taken aback

"I don't know, that means you have very, very strong magic… but you've never used a spell." She seemed to have gone into deep thinking because she hadn't closed her mouth after her last word; it came out sounding like 'speehhh…'

"It's probably malfunctioning," Suddenly Brand became very tired, and his vision blurred. He fell asleep almost instantly after hitting the edge of something hard and metal.


End file.
